State pension fund loses $1.4 billion in third quarter

HARTFORD (AP) -- The state pension fund lost $1.4 billion in the quarter ending Sept. 30, $800 million less than officials expected, the state treasurer's office said Wednesday.

Published
12:00 am EDT, Thursday, October 24, 2002

A spokesman for state Treasurer Denise Nappier said officials had expected the pension fund to lose money based on the recent performance of the stock market.

The Standard & Poors 500 index lost more than 17 percent during the same quarter, while the pension fund lost 7.6 percent, spokesman Bernard Kavaler said. The treasurer's office had expected the pension fund to lose 11.9 percent in the third quarter.

Kavaler also said the pension fund has regained about $450 million in the three weeks since the end of the third quarter.

The statistics were supposed to be released two weeks ago at a meeting of the state Investment Advisory Council, but the meeting was canceled. The reasons for the cancellation were unclear. IAC Chairman Steven Hart did not return a call for comment.

Nappier's Republican opponent, Ross Garber, criticized the treasurer's office for not releasing the statistics two weeks ago. His campaign maintained that the public should know how the fund did in the last quarter before the Nov. 5 elections.

Garber said the pension fund loss was significant.

"That is a lot of money to have lost," Garber said Wednesday. "But the key statistic is, how did we do compared to other pension funds?"

Kavaler said comparative figures weren't available yet.

"It's provided by a service, and they have to wait until each of the funds gets final numbers," he said. "It's usually not until a couple of weeks after the quarter ends."

Kavaler said he was basing his contention that the pension fund was performing strongly on its history over the past three years and on its performing better than officials' expectations.

Garber's campaign has stressed the importance of full disclosure of pension fund data and promised that, if elected, he will have the figures posted on the office's Web site.

"The overarching issue is that there isn't sufficient info coming out of the treasurer's office," said Garber campaign manager Todd Abrajano. "The treasurer's office does not offer the public an easy route to find out what's going on with all these tax dollars and that's not acceptable."